The first-ever AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Monday, Dec. 6 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. The two-hour primetime special will be the first and only country music awards show where fans determine all the winners by voting for their favorite nominees in music, touring and video categories.

Superstars Lady Antebellum and newcomer Easton Corbin lead the inaugural AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS nominees with seven nominations each; Carrie Underwood earned six nods; and Miranda Lambert and Josh Turner each garnered five.

Starting today, fans can vote once each day for their favorite AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS nominees at www.theacas.com. Voting is open until November 8, 2010, for all categories, except for Artist of the Year, which closes on December 4. The nominees for each award category have been determined by one of the four respected media measurement companies Big Champagne, Great American Country, Mediabase and Pollstar.

“Unlike any other country music award show, the AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS will give fans the power to choose all of the winners, which means the awards will reflect what America is listening to and watching right now,” said executive producer Bob Bain. “The ACAs will recognize traditional categories like Artist of the Year and Album of the Year but will also introduce a new honor for tours, resulting in one amazing night for country music.”

The AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS will feature performances and appearances by the year’s chart-topping country artists. Performers and presenters will be announced soon.

Following is the list of categories and nominees for the AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS:

The MGM Grand Garden Arena is home to concerts, championship boxing and premier sporting and special events. The Arena offers comfortable seating for as many as 16,800 with excellent sightlines and state-of-the-art acoustics, lighting and sound. Prominent events to date have included world championship fights between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson as well as Oscar de la Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather and George Foreman vs. Michael Moorer; and concerts by The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, George Strait, Janet Jackson, Phil Collins, Billy Joel, U2, ‘N Sync, Sting, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jimmy Buffett and the Barbra Streisand Millennium Concert. The MGM Grand Garden Arena also is home to the annual Academy of Country Music Awards and the Frozen Fury NHL pre-season game which features the Los Angeles Kings vs. Colorado Avalanche.

About Big Champagne

Big Champagne has a software platform for integrating, analyzing, and reporting information about the sale, broadcast and consumption of popular entertainment media. Their partners and sources for data include retailers, online and traditional (radio and television) broadcasters, major content companies, subscription services, social networks, and other venues where entertainment is enjoyed.

About Great American Country (GAC)

Great American Country is the leader in country music entertainment, and delivers to viewers the widest variety of country music, its artists and the lifestyles they influence. GAC broadcasts original country music programming, music performance specials, live concerts and music videos. GAC is available in more than 58 million households and online at www.gactv.com. GAC is owned by Scripps Networks, the leading developer of lifestyle-oriented content for television and the Internet, including HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Travel Channel and Cooking Channel. Scripps Networks is based in Knoxville, TN, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and Nashville and is a unit of Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE:SNI).

About Mediabase

Mediabase, a division of Premiere Radio Networks, is a music industry website containing in-depth charts and analysis based on the monitoring of 1,836 radio stations in the US and Canada, in 175 radio markets. Mediabase features real-time charts in 25 radio formats, based on radio airplay.

About Pollstar

Pollstar is the only trade publication covering the worldwide concert industry. They have been supplying in-depth information to every professional concert promoter, booking agent, artist manager, facility executive and every other entity involved in the live entertainment business for more than 25 years. Pollstar gets its information primarily from the agents, managers and promoters who are producing concerts. They employ a staff of more than 25 full-time professionals who do nothing except research and build their tour database.